T-Mobile customers will be treated to a decent 5-megapixel camera which is above average when compared to other phones in their lineup. In addition to that, you will find an auto-focusing lens, self portrait mirror, and flash.

It takes about 3 seconds to start the software, after holding the button on the right side. When compared to dedicated digital cameras, you will need to slightly press down on the button to allow the camera to focus and then all the way to take the shot. The period between two pictures is relatively short too (3-4 seconds). You can navigate through the interface very easily which has a lot of menu options and simplistic at its core. There are two sets of four icons arranged vertically on the sides of the application.

Camera interface

The best photos that the device produced were outdoor shots with good lighting. They came out very clear and detailed with colors remaining true when the auto-focus was used. You could see even fine detail such as license plate numbers from cars that were in the distance. Indoor shots in almost any lighting condition seemed to come out fuzzy with colors being on the dull side when taking shots from far distances. The flash on the device only works well when you are taking a shot of something that is three feet away at the maximum from you. As you move further away, the flash does not do justice for color reproduction and everything looks fuzzy with no detail.

Outdoor samples

Strong light

Medium light

Low light

Indoor images without flash

3feet

5feet

7feet

Flash test

Videos on the other hand tell a different story though. We were quite disappointed to find that it only supports a maximum resolution of 320x240. There is a substantial few more options with the video and limits the user to small set of choices. After taking some videos in low light conditions and previewing them, we noticed that mostly everything that was captured came out dark. On the other hand, videos came out pretty decent in outdoor settings with plenty of light. Even when the phone was placed on its highest setting, the sound was very low and found ourselves listening intently. The single speaker just does not provide enough power to deliver a decent video experience, but we did not have any problems listening with wired stereo headphones.

Music player

Multimedia:

The music player has two versions – one taking up the entire screen, and which is accessible from the main menu and a second one that is visualized as a widget. In the first one, under the album cover and the track info now playing, there are six buttons. They are used to shuffle songs, repeat, modify the equalizer settings, rewind to the previous track, pause, and forward. You can sort tracks by the artist, genre, album, play list selection. Overall, the interface is easy to use but has an unattractive “antique” design. The simple functionality (fast forward, play/pause) is accessible via the widget player.

Viewing videos was tolerable, but nothing like what you would see on the iPhone or Storm. YouTube users will be pleased to know that you can watch streaming videos on the device as well. We were able to load a movie trailer in both H.263 (320x144) and H.264 (320x136) formats onto the device with no problems. The video played with a smooth frame rate with the audio syncing up perfectly with it. In addition, the Behold also supports MPEG4 and WMV videos.

Video playback

Unfortunately, the same weak speaker you use during a call is employed for sound reproduction. When placed on the highest audio setting, the sound still seemed a little weak and harder to listen in louder areas.

Software:

TeleNav Navigation

Besides the demo games that came preloaded with the Behold, the only other software application you will find is TeleNav Navigation. It provides quick turn-by-turn directions to addresses or points of interests. If you’re in an area where traffic is a problem, the software can quickly redirect you to avoid it and arrive at a prompt time. It took quite some time for the Behold to find our current GPS location but did not have problems getting directions afterwards.

Business users might want to look elsewhere if they plan on reading important documents because the Behold does not support viewing any Microsoft Office files. In addition to that, PDF files were unable to load as well.

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really good review. i'm sure u guys agree with me that this phone is better then the eternity. i dont understand why u guys kept saying the samsung eternity instead of the samsung behold a few times in the review. haha
i think u guys should put this phone as second place in the t-mobiles top camera phones. not the Nokia 5610.
i really think u guys should review the samsung gravity and the motorola rokr e8.

the eternity is kinda big.....like a damn brick
ok uh i have the behold my sis has the nokia 5610 her camera sucks just as bad as the one on her former nokia 5300 so retarded
how did that get 2nd place? it takes the crappiest pics i ever seen....my former 1.3 mp samsung trace from 2007 took better pics

oh and i forgot to say that the Behold was the first touch wiz phone available. delve was the first available for pre order online but the actual first was the behold. then came the eternity, then delve and lastly the omnia.

I wanted to say that while the Behold is a really nicely designed phone and has a lot of features, it has a lot of design or software flaws that discredit it such as a "driving" profile setting that is supposed to activate the speaker phone when a call is answered in that mode, a call alert setting of "melody" which gives the "increasing melody" setting no matter where it is set to, a speed-dial entering system that takes only a mobile phone contact with no option for another multiple listing phone number and many other flaws that a true phone techy could find and see. Samsung claims they can fix my Behold by me sending it back to them for a so-called software or memory refresh but, what about all the people who have this phone and don't know about the flaws and how many people can and will send theirs in for repairs. Can't Samsung initiate a software update to correct the problems? You tell me!

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